Can't read Android SD card in PC

[koshiviriieternium]

My phone USB port has stopped transferring data and will only charge, leaving me bluetooth as my only option but that is way too slow for the number of files I want off my phone and I can't plug the SD card into the PC as it shows up greyed out being formatted for Android.

 

[popatim]

The android normal (ie; removeable storage) format is completely compatible with windows. I pull mine and my wifes SD cards out to make backups at least twice a year.

There's a few possibilities that come to mind since you cannot access the card from the PC
You turned on SD card encryption which you can turn off (android 8 in in Lock Screen & Security>Encryption & Credentials.)
You formatted the SD card as Internal memory which formats and encrypts the card but this has no way to undo or possible recovery/access externally.

As a work around to recover files faster; you may want to try a new usb data cable (some are charge only) as well as make sure the phone is in MTP mode when you connect.

 

[koshiviriieternium]

Thank you for the reply
USB cable isn't an option, when I plug a cable into my phone it'll only charge as it's broken, leaving me with blue tooth but when you have 1000's of MP3s bluetooth isn't that helpful, when I put my SD card out of my phone in my PC it's greyed out with all the other drives C:, D:, E: ect , I looked in the file path you suggested on my phone but "Security>Encryption" isn't an option in the Lock Screen section of Android 6.0.1.

 

[popatim]

On your storage screen, does the amount of Internal storage = the phone storage plus the SD card. I'm not meaning Used storage, just the total.
In the image below you see internal's total is 90.53 which is the 32gb of internal + the 58.53 of the SD card. This means the card is part of the internal storage and encrypted.

*thx to AndroidCentral for the image.

Another possibility is that your SD card reader is too old to read the card you actually have. I had an issue when SD cards came out using SDHC and my reader only worked with SD. These days cards are SDXC or UHS.

 

[koshiviriieternium]

Internal and SD card capacities are not added together, my SD/USB reader is quite old, which might not be helping, but works with other SD cards not from my phone, but when I use the SD card from my phone it shows up on my PC but is greyed out.

 

[koshiviriieternium]

I think I cracked it. The first few times I tried to plug my phones SD card into my PC, I unmounted the SD card leaving the phone powered on. I just tried powering the phone down fully then plugging the SD card into my PC which has worked.

Can mark this as solved, thank you for your time.